From the first century CE to the present, Ovid’s myth-encylopedic Metamorphoses has been an astonishingly fertile resource for myth-makers of all stripes (theorists, artists, philosophers). This class will focus on an array of stories that illustrate various permutations of desire: of men for women, women for men, men for men, women for women.

This course examines forms of Modern Greek writing (prose, poetry, drama) and the reading of literary texts as auxiliary to the acquisition of compositional skills.

Prerequisites: Consent of the instructor.

A reader for the course is prepared by the instructor.

Text:  A Manual of Modern Greek by Anne Farmakides,Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-30003019-8

In this introduction to the discipline of comparative literature, we will compare figures of writing--marks, traces, signs of passage--in various examples of world literature and literary theory. Taking our cue from Shakespeare’s phrase, we will explore circuits of partial transfers and translation in various material practices of inscription, citation, dissemination, erasure and preservation.

This course considers the shared experiences of Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and refugees--groups that are not necessarily considered together--by mapping histories and ongoing practices of exclusion, displacement, and surveillance in the United States as narrated in works by Native American, African American, Latinx and Asian American writers.

Physically, New York and Los Angeles spread across the map and encompass multiple neighborhoods and communities, seemingly facilitating our ability to access, explore, and find new connections. Socially and economically, both cities have been figured as distinctly “American” dreamscapes—places of refuge and freedom, success, and self-invention—that hinge on the promise that the American city works like an open circuit, enabling unrestricted movement and mobility to and for everyone who visits or decides to make it home.

One of Freud’s main legacies and one of the reasons that he is accused of sexism and of phallocentrism, the Oedipus complex has a bad rep these days. At the same time, it is the indispensable entry point for any new attempt to reconceptualize gender, sexuality, and kinship as well as the psyche and subjectivity from feminist and queer perspectives.

“Now, there is a teacher of nuance, literature.” The literary critic Roland Barthes makes this claim in a defence of nuance that will provide us with a point of departure. In this introduction to comparative reading, we will begin with the premise that an appreciation for nuance can be taught, and that the study of literature can sharpen our perception and understanding of nuance.

Often in Comparative Literature we speak of “national literatures” and assume there is a correspondence between a nation and a language. We think about translation as moving text from one language into another, and migration as moving from a place where one language is spoken to a place where another language is spoken. There are theories and ideologies that undergird all of this kind of thinking.